A Fly On My Homeschool Wall

I have slept so little this week, that our activities and accomplishments are a blur. Dad was sick this week.  So was Little Brother.  The babies are getting it now.  Exhaustion is not unique to me.  I do remember that we focused on history this week, completing lessons 7-12 which were about the Tower of Babel, Noah, Abraham, Joseph, and the founding of Egypt. This lesson about the founding of Egypt had is walk a narrow path blindfolded while we followed the guidance of a trusted leader as its attention-getting-activity.  The LEGOs all over the floor were the painful consequence of stepping off the path. I sent an email to the creators of the curriculum we're using because I'm displeased with the incongruities in their timeline.  They focus on Biblical time (which I approve of heartily), but include dates on their timeline cards that show obvious discrepancies between Biblical timelines and secular timelines, and they offer no help with e...

It has been a terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad day. It is the second of it's kind this week. I'm seriously irritable, annoyed, and in no mood to be the mom. My kids can feel it. I see it in their eyes. Something's gotta give, and it's going to have to be me. What can I give? While I think I'll remember the week as a whole. Making pictures with the garden mulch . . .   "Painting" with water--probably my favorite toddler/preschool activity ever.   Little Sister is beginning to walk.  Every other hour someone calls, "Mom [Little Sister] just took a step!"  and picks her up to cover her with kisses and tell her she's marvelous.  What a blessing it is for our babies to have so many cheerleaders. Baymax is more and more mobile each day.  His army crawl is alarmingly fast, and he's sure trying to get/keep his belly off the ground.  He's just waaaaay too chubby to hold that much weight up yet. :) We had ...

photo credit:  one of my kids--I'm not sure which one I am compelled to write down what I am feeling and thinking . . . Each day is so utterly overwhelming as to be impossible to describe . . . I cannot think beyond any single hour . . . Anything more leaves me breathless . . . Though I do meal plan and grocery shop one week at a time. I've felt sad and tight and angry and trapped for many, many days . . . Then this post appeared about a week ago . . . And I wanted to cry because I am struggling to love my family life--struggling to find the joy I once had. I had no idea what to do . . . Nor how to do it . . . I just kept putting one foot in front of the other . . . And I couldn't even pray about it . . . My prayers have been utterly incoherent jumbles of gratitude for surviving the day and pleadings for the next day's survival . . . But a loving Father knew the soreness of my heart and answered . . . "Slow down." Slow down...

I uploaded 438 pictures this weekend, and of them I can share these 4: Rose Red laughed at me one morning, grabbed the camera, and took this picture.  She said I should post what laundry folding looks like at our house.  I replied that most of the online families I "know" have lots of kids, and this won't impress anyone. One afternoon the kids watched Signing Time.  The new kids really like it--especially Ladybug. We ate "worms in dirt" one day just for fun to remember our worm science lesson the week before. The babies had a jam session. We had another geography week--learning about the atmosphere.  It felt more like science.  I guess that shows us how all subjects are related. We had our dance practice outside at a really neat park.  Otherwise I didn't like having our meeting outside--too hot after an hour or so, and the little kids didn't want to practice singing and dancing because they wanted to play.  I'm co-teaching the ...

This week was science week at our house.  We completed lessons 1-4 of our science curriculum, and then we also did lesson 2 of our art curriculum. We began Little Pear for our September Cousins' Book Club meeting. We continued reading A Single Shard as part of our geography enrichment. Nature Angel, Little Princess and I did absolutely zero math work together.  That was disappointing, but there's still so much sickness and so many calls to the nurse advice line and so many appointments with doctors that I had to let something go. The good news is that the older 4 girls are all doing daily math now.  Rose Red has returned to trying to complete Math U See Epsilon; Pixie is finishing Saxon 8/7; Super Star has begun Saxon 5/4; and Belle has begun Saxon 7/6.  So far, all is well. Rose Red does science with us, but she's also working on Alpha Omega LifePac Science 9 on her own.  Here she is simulating atomic motion in solids, liquids, and gases. As an...